Why Stigmata?
“Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.”
— Stephen King (On Writing)
I have the utmost respect for Mr. King. That man has more novels in him than almost any other author. Like King, I whole heartedly agree that ideas spring from nowhere, or the sky. I like to believe in Julia Cameron’s idea, author of The Artist’s Way, when she says, “…ideas come from the great creator”. Call it God, inspiration, nature, or whatever you like, ideas spring out from the empty vacuum of nothingness. Someone or something, is tuning us into the realm of imagination, where dreams are screaming to be written.
For me, writing is as close to me as my faith. I practice it daily. It brings me closer to creativity, and it nudges me back to matters of personal faith. Wherever ideas come from, and I’m sure there are no right or wrong answers, we must be thankful that ideas DO in fact come to us.
The problem we artists suffer from, is when these ideas become plugged like a blocked pipe, or a dammed river. We become furious with ourselves that we can’t hurdle the foreboding nothingness of the blank page. We must accept that creative blocks happen, and they are often frustrating or very personal.
For me, writing is like stigmata. It seemingly springs up out of nowhere, and is sometimes very painful. Ideas can be infuriating, but they can also be empowering. It is an ethereal, sometimes spiritual aspect that brings me down out of the clouds, and onto the blank page of my story. The water starts to flow from the tap. The river breaks the dam and becomes a rapid downhill adventure, until the very last page.
Whatever is blocking you, I hope some of the tools presented on this blog, will help to unravel the knots in your story, and your soul.
